We humans are incredibly blessed with our brain.

The problem is that it evolved for the most part, while we were in survival mode. During the time we were not very safe, our brains protected us by having a negative bias that kept us always on the lookout for things that could kill or hurt us.

From where we are now, in our modern world, this can be a big problem.

When I first share with coaching clients and students how the most ancient part of our brain, the primitive “toddler” sabotages us, people say “but how can that be when we are so safe now?”

It’s true, there is no saber toothed tiger around each corner waiting to make us a meal.

But our primitive brain hasn’t yet caught up.

To illustrate this, here’s a doodle timeline to shed some light to why and how we are still very controlled by this part of our brain.

We’ll compress the 50,000 years of recorded human history into an easier to understand 50 year time span.

The recorded history of humans in doodles.

When you see the 50,000 years of recorded human history in our shortened 50 year period, there is very little known about humans for the first 40 of those years.

It’s only 10 years ago in this timeline that we know humans began clothing themselves and building primitive shelters.

About 5 years ago, humans began to use symbols for communication and invented the use of the wheel.

It was only THIS year that we created the printing press and the ability to spread ideas more easily.

Two months ago, the steam engine was invented.

Last month, electricity, the automobile and the telephone were invented.

Penicillin and television arrived only last week!

One minute ago, we put a man on the moon. Tonight, we will have invented the internet.

We’ve come a long way as humans.

Why is this a problem now?

The problem is – using the compressed timeline of 50 years – that we have only gotten relatively safe in the last few months. Our primitive brain evolved during the vast majority of that time to keep us in fight, flight, freeze reactions and responses, even though we’re now VERY safe.

This is why we have SO much anxiety and angst around things that really shouldn’t scare us so much. We’re still waiting for the saber-toothed tiger to jump out and get us!

This is one of the reasons journaling is so powerful.

The act of writing your thoughts down SLOWS your brain down so you can become more aware of your thoughts.